Connectivism:A Theory of Personal Learning

Stephen DownesDecember 3, 2008

What Carleton Means To Me

What is my personallearning environment?

• A place to store (and share) my photos

http://www.flickr.com

• A place to store (and share) my videos

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4126240905912531540

• A place to write an essay with mycolleague in Montreal

http://docs.google.com

• A way to stay up to date - rightup to date

http://www.google.com/reader

• A way to save on phone calls

http://www.skype.com

• Knowing where I’m stayingbefore I get there

http://maps.google.com

• An Easy Way To Draw Pictures

http://www.gliffy.com

What does personal learningmean for learners?

• A world of free learning resources…

Don’t like the word ‘free’? Deal with it…http://educationvault.blogspot.com/2008/08/zaidlearn-ocw-oer-lists.html

Three Views of Learning Resources:

1. Learning Resources as a thing–Book, content object, etc

2. Learning Resources as events–Class, lecture, seminar, meeting

• The first two models areinformation-theoretic andmedium-based models–They stress content–They stress rules

3. Learning Resources as flow– Stresses experience– Stresses pattern recognition

What does personal learninglook like?

• User generated Content–Personal, opinionated

• Network of interactions

• Immersive Learning

• New Roles– For students - as creators of learning– For teachers - as coaches and mentors– For the rest of us - as teachers

• Web of user-generated content(eg. Wikipedia)…

http://www.wikipedia.org

Learning as a networkphenomenon…

Issues:

• Too much information, filtering info• Too many sources to scan, new

sources• Localization, personalization,

relevance

Response: Network Semantics

http://epthinking.blogspot.com/2008/08/on-event-processing-network-and.html

• Social networks and communities(entails a genuinely portable (andowned) identity

http://www.facebook.com

• Networks of interactions(aggregate, remix, repurpose, feedforward) – syndication

An ecology…

• The personal learning centre

http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/2006/11/more_on_mles_and_ples.html

Autonomy

• The Network is Diverse –multiple views, multipletechnologies

http://flickr.com/photos/11242012@N07/1363575474

• The Network is connected andinteractive (not ‘integrated’) –small pieces, loosely joined

http://www.biography.org.uk/real.htm

• The Network is open

http://park.org/Japan/NTT/DM/html_f4/F4_10600_e.html

What are the key technologies?

http://www.bclir.org/Egypt.htm

Web 2.0 - Core Technologies

Tools for worldmaking…

Social Networking

http://staffdev.henrico.k12.va.us/parents/socnetwork.htm

Tagging

Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX)

Jesse James Garrett in February 2005.

https://bpcatalog.dev.java.net/ajax/textfield-jsf/design.html

Representational State Transfer (REST)

- principles that outline how resources are defined and addressed- looser sense: domain-specific data over HTTP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transferhttp://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/Watcher/20060315/232492/

Application Program Interface (API) andMash-Ups

http://scenariothinking.org/wiki/images/b/b6/MashUpSysDiagramV6.0.jpg

Javascript Object Notation (JSON)

OpenID

http://gabinetedeinformatica.net/wp15/2007/03/09/openid-nuestra-identidad-virtual/http://www.funnymonkey.com/openid-in-education

Connectivism &Connective Knowledge

The Best Example…

• 12 week course, readings, activities…• The course on connectivism is probably

the best (early) example of what wemean– We began with the course itself – what we

wanted to cover– We then added communications tools– And then the students took over…

Overview…

• George Siemens and I are usheringroughly 2200 students through a 12week online course

• Some of these paid tuition and aregetting credit, but most of them areattended the ‘open’ course

The Course

• Offered through the University ofManitoba– 12 weeks long– credit in Certificate in Adult and Continuing

Education and Certificate in EmergingTechnologies for Learning

– Explored the concepts of connectivism andconnective knowledge

Connectivism

“At its heart, connectivism is the thesisthat knowledge is distributed across anetwork of connections, and thereforethat learning consists of the ability toconstruct and traverse those networks.”What Connectivism Ishttp://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-connectivism-is.html

Course Components

• The Wiki…

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Connectivism

Course Components (2)

• Open Enrollment

• The course was advertised in both of our blogs…

Course Components

• Readings….

Course Components (3)

• The Blog

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/

Course Components

• Course Moodle Forum

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=20

Course Components

• Pageflakes Site

http://www.pageflakes.com/ltc

Course Components

• Elluminate Discussions (Wednesdays)

Course Components

• Ustream

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/688902

Course Components

• Twitter…

http://twitter.com/cck08

Course Components

• gRSShopper…

TheMainIdea

Thewebofthefutureisn’taboutvisitingsites,it’saboutconnectingresources.

Architecture

Theapplicationprovidesmechanismstoinput,process,anddistributecontent.

Login

gRSShopperinstancesarepersonalsitesintendedtosupportsingleusersorsmallgroups(thoughvisitorscansignin).

Subscriptions

Visitorshaveaone‐clickwaytosubscribetositenewsletters(ortheycansignupforRSS).

CustomPages

Contentisorganizedintopages

Archive

Pagesauto‐archive

CustomPages

Multiplepagescanbecreated;eachpagecanbeanewsletter(ornot;youdecide)

PageCreation

Pagesarecreatedautomaticallyfromadatabaseofcontenttypes

FeedManagement

ContentinputcomesfromRSSfeedsharvestedbygRSShopper

Harvester

Harvestercapturesandanalyzesincomingdata(bytopic,links,etc)

Mapping

Incomingcontentcanbemappedtoanyofavarietyofdatatypes

ViewingHarvestedContent

Harvestedcontentsmayeasilybescannedinaviewer

PostEditor

Workwithaggregatedcontenttocreatenewcontent

OpenSource

gRSShoppercodeisavailableasanopensourcedownload

More

http://www.downes.cahttp://grsshopper.downes.ca

Course Components

• The Daily

http://connect.downes.ca/

Course Components

• Managing Content

Course Components

• Feed Harvesting

Course Components

• OPML…

Course Components

• Intro…

The Students

• The Course Map…

http://x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2008/09/06/cck08-first-impressions/

The Students

• The Other Course Map…

http://tinyurl.com/cck08map

The Students

• Add to the Map - Video

http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/09/cck08-is-truly-global.html

The Students

• Wordle… 1

The Students

• Wordle… 2

The Students

• Wordle… 3

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25838481@N04/

The Students

• Word of Mouth

http://fleeep.net/blog/2008/08/03/educators-cck08-connectivism-connective-knowledge-course/

The Students

• Google Groups

http://groups.google.com/group/connectivism

The Students

• Translations…

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Conectivismo_-_Curso_online

The Students

• Dekita…

http://dekita.org/orchard/CCK08_/

The Students

• Second Life…• Diigo…• de.l.icio.us• WordPress…

Learning Approach

• http://apsblog.com/site/learning-architecture/learning-approaches

Co-Location

Physical spaces will become work and creativity spaces, notpresentation spaces. New technology includes: ambientinternet, multimedia, robotics, capture tools, more… Eg. MITMedia Lab

CoachingMentoringInteractionPlayCreation

Collaboration

Online collaboration becoming more immersive, moremultimedia. Eg. Second Life, Adobe Connect, Elluminate;capture tools more prevalent. Collaboration more mobile as well– don’t forget recording and capture.

ConferencingMeetingConversationCo-creationTeamingNetworks

Interaction

Game-based learning becoming widelyaccepted; games and simulationsbecoming more realistic; new tools andmod kits to help people program theirown environments. Multi-userenvironments become huge.

GamesSimulationsTrainingLearning Objects

Information

Information becomes free and ubiquitous; easilyfound via personalized semantic social networks;data becomes embedded into learning resources.

LecturesBooksConferencesPagesVideo

The Principles

1. Diversity

We want to encourage students toengage in diverse readings, diverseenvironments, diverse discussions

The Principles

2. Autonomy

We want students to chart their owncourse, to select their own software, topursue their own learning

The Principles

3. Interaction / Connectedness

The knowledge in this course emerges asa result of the connections among thestudents and staff – and is not some‘content’ shoveled from experts torecipients

The Principles

4. Openness

We don’t draw barriers between ‘in’ and‘out’ – which means we canaccommodate the full engaged, thepartially engaged, and the rest –creating strong ties and weak ties

Thanks!

http://www.downes.ca